My name is Ace and I'm really new to keeping Ants. I was watching a few (a lot) of the AntsCanada videos on youtube and totally got into AntKeeping. I wanted to challenge myself to create an ant colony from one queen and to attempt to make it grow and stay healthy. I watched the tutorial video on how to identify a queen ant, then I watched Mikeys last vlog while he was out looking for queens. It was about 1:30AM when I decided to look for a queen. It's pretty warm out here in Los Angeles at the moment so I ended up capturing two queens. I separated both into different tube set ups...

I didn't think they'd survive without food, but when I checked on the queens the next morning, they looked great and were still gnawing at the cotton. I wrapped the tubes up in foil to keep light out, and put it in the coolest part of the house. It's hot in Los Angeles right now and I live in an apartment with no air conditioning. Insulation sucks so it's warm here. I don't want to let the ants over heat, so I put them in the coolest part of the apartment. Again, it's still pretty warm in that area.

I left on August 6 around 8:30AM for a short trip to Santa Barbara for my girlfriends birthday. I just got home around 12:30AM (August 10) and I decided to check on my queen ants. It looks like they have laid eggs!!! Mikey has a sick camera with awesome macro footage so I'm used to seeing ant eggs a little bigger. In my test tubes, the eggs look smaller than a pin hole. Here are some potato quality pictures from my iPotato 6 Plus:

Are those indeed eggs? Can I be on my way to helping these queens start their colonies? Should I put them together? They appear to be from the same colony to begin with. I'll leave the ants alone for another three days and check up on them later. I'm still trying to figure out what species these ants are. I don't think anyone would be able to tell what species these ants are by my low quality pictures. Please comment any advice on how I can help this colony get on its feet and thrive. My biggest questions are, when do I know when to move them to a bigger home? How big should this new home be? Should it be sand? Soil? Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for replying with any advice or answers to any of my questions. I have lots to learn and I hope I can make good friends here on the forums and possibly in person! I hope you enjoy this thread.

Your going to have to take some better photos because I can't see much from those photos . Don't combine the 2 queens unless you know the species you have is polygynous ( meaning they have multiple queens ) and both queens are the same species . You should move your colony into a formacarim when you get around 20 workers . The size of the formicarium depends on the size of the colony and the size of the ants . For your formicarium you don't even have to have dirt or soil but if you do it depend on the species . Also make sure you previde an outworld even when you have just a couple of workers . You could also connect you test tube to a test tube set up if you have only a couple of workers and then move them to a normal outworld.

One of the queens died. I believe they are from the same colony. I caught them just a few feet apart from each other. Would the surviving queen adopt the motherless brood? Also, would it help to capture worker ants from the same colony along with some queens to help the colony grow a little quicker?

Captured more queens along with a few worker ants and for the last 24 appear to be living peacefully together. Queens appear to continue laying eggs. I have two test tubes with open tops placed in a jar with four queens total. The first queen has been in one test tube since the day she was captured, and has been joined by about six worker ants. I do not know what they are doing, but they are living peacefully together. In the second tube, three queen ants have congregated inside along with two worker ants and appear to be living in peace as well. Other worker ants look like they are foraging. I put a drop of honey and a piece protein rich food in an old film container with an open top. Hoping they will find this and use it to nourish the rest of the ants.

Someone decided to move away from her sisters to join her other sister.

On the right is their current residence. Inside consists of two test tube open top set ups, one Kodak film roll container for food and easy clean up. Mouth of jar is lined with vaseline. Top is put on with two dozen holes punched into the top for air flow.

On the left is where I would like them to live when they grow a little bit bigger. I would like to have a set up where it consists of sand, some smooth rocks and Ant Man sitting in a beach chair with some a bottle of the finest Corona beer. Just kidding about Ant Man but we'll see.

Can anyone tell what species this is by the visible characteristics? Thanks